Signals
by Auntieoaty
Summary: <html><head></head>Has Vic misread the 'signals?</html>
1. Hellava Day

**Hellava Day**

Vic was driving, she thought aimlessly, but realized she was headed for The Red Pony. _What the hell_? What made her think The Red Pony was a good idea? Shit, none of her ideas had been all that good today, each one worse than the previous. Her mind reviewed the day as she pulled into the lot and parked far off to one side. …  
><strong>*********<strong>

… Vic walked out of the front door, backpack slung over on shoulder and coffee thermos in hand. She pushed the button on the lock and pulled the door shut. Reaching in her pocket and then quickly patting all her pockets and clawing through the backpack; she realized she had locked her keys in the house. "Shit!" Who knew deciding to start toting a thermos would cause such trouble. She remembered grabbing all her gear, keys included, and then seeing the thermos. Setting her keys down on the counter, to free her hands, she filled the thermos and rinsed the coffee carafe. Vic finished both tasks and headed out, thermos in hand; keys forgotten on the counter. Pulling her cell out she called Ruby to tell her she would be late. Then she called the local locksmith who thought it was just too funny not to tease her; having a job that required attending to details and she overlooked her own keys.

At lunch she opted to try the new Mexican food place, it was a sharp lesson in waiting for a place to mark a one month anniversary before trying it. The place had opened the previous week and Vic doubted it would make it to the end of the following week. The least of its problems was it wasn't even Mexican food, aside from the 'tacos' and 'burritos'. Apparently, anything stuffed into a tortilla constituted a 'taco' or 'burrito'. The worst of its problems was it wasn't even food; at least Vic doubted it was. Hours later and her stomach still felt odd and kept grumbling obnoxiously.

Jumping from her truck and chasing their suspect on foot, across the square and through the adjoining neighborhood, onto the long winding walking path that headed to Clear Creek was not her best decision of the day either. Well in truth it wasn't the chasing she called into question; it was the football styled tackle she launched at the man's lower legs. The move, which seemed like a good idea at the time, resulted in both of them ending up _in_ Clear Creek. Her gun would never be the same and it didn't look to good for her cell phone either.  
><strong>*********<strong>

Vic walked in and headed straight to the bar, she was here, she might as well have a drink; or ten. Sliding onto a stool she stared at Henry until he made his way to her. She ordered a beer and took a long draw before setting it down and staring at him again.

"Would you like to talk?"

Vic considered him for a period of time and Henry waited in silence for her to decide. "Can I hold that in reserve?"

"Absolutely, I will be here. Let me know if you change your mind or need anything else."

"Thanks." She said flatly and drew another long swig from the bottle.

Henry left her to her thoughts and tended to other customers but periodically glanced in her direction.

With the way the day had gone, getting drunk really would be nearly the worst move she'd made all day; with the exception of one. That one was not just the worst today but probably the worst move she had made in the past several years. Vic idly picked at the label on her beer bottle and thought about what led up to the dumb move in question. Wondering just how badly she had screwed her life up earlier that evening. …  
><strong>*********<strong>

… Walt had been out of the office when Vic returned with their suspect; both dripping wet and Vic steaming mad. She had been tempted to kick 'dumb shit's' ass all the way from Clear Creek back to the office. She pushed the spindly man passed Ruby, through the low swinging door, into a cell, and watched Ferg lock it.

"I'm headed to the shower." She said to no one in particular as she pulled dry clothes from the drawer of her desk and her go bag.

Branch came in as she pushed the drawer closed with her soggy boot. Seeing her soaked, dripping clothes he asked, "Who mopped the floor today? They missed some spots."

Walt came through the door behind Branch, in time to hear Vic's response of, "Bite me," before she headed past the cells to the back stairs.

Vic returned from the cramped basement shower, dressed in jeans and a light pullover sweater. Her wet clothes were secured in double Ziploc bags. Looking at neither Branch nor Ferg she asked, "Would one of you take this jackrabbit down stairs for dry clothes?"

She did not wait for an answer and moved on to her desk. The Ziploc bags were stuffed into her backpack before she dropped into her chair to finish tying her tactical boots; another thing she was glad she kept in her go bag.

Once her boots were cinched up Ruby cleared her throat and said, "Vic, Walt would like to see you."  
><strong>*********<strong>

Vic hadn't paid attention to the woman who sat on the stool next to her; she was intent on methodically pealing the label slowly off her bottle. She knew it was a woman because she noticed the bare lower leg as the woman stepped up on the stool, beyond that she'd paid no mind.

A few minutes later, Henry stepped up to the two women and asked, "May I get anything more for you ladies this evening?"

Vic looked up at him at the same time Cady answered, "Would you make me one of your monster cheeseburgers with your special seasoned fries, please?" The younger woman's voice held a slight dreamy quality to it.

Henry smiled indulgently, "The fries I only make for you?"

Cady smiled and nodded, "Yes please."

"I assume you would also like the cheeseburger cut in half." He stated rather than asked, because he knew his goddaughter very well."

Cady repeated the nod and the "Yes please" of before, but raised herself up to lean over the bar as Henry leaned toward her as well and dutifully turned his cheek to her. He smiled as Cady placed her 'payment' on his cheek in the form of a kiss; the same payment for the same order that they had exchanged for years.

Henry turned, "Vic. Is there anything I can get for you?"

Vic drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, "Yeah, another beer. But don't let me get drunk Henry."

"Okay another beer. But I think I will put Cady in charge of not letting you get drunk." When she stared at him he explained, "I will be in the kitchen preparing a special order."

"Right." Vic said and then looked at Cady when Henry set the beer on the bar and walked away, "Think you can handle it?"

Cady shrugged, "Are you planning on getting drunk?"

"Nope. But I wasn't planning on coming in here and I wasn't planning on leaving work early and I wasn't planning on screwing my life up today either. And I did all of those, so." She shrugged instead of finishing the statement with words.

"Wow, I guess you've had some day!"

"Oh that was just the last couple of hours."

"Maybe you should get drunk." Cady joked but the glare Vic gave her caused her to quickly backpedal, "No, you don't need to get drunk on top of all that. That won't help anything. You wanna talk about it?"

"Which part?"

"Uh, whatever part you want to talk about."

Vic said nothing and looked back to her beer and took a quick swallow. Cady thought she was going to share what was on her mind so she kept quiet and waited.


	2. Let's Review Shall We

**Let's Review, Shall We?  
><strong>**********<strong>  
><strong>

He had been calling her house phone every few minutes without an answer. He could drive over there, but he really didn't think she was home; he knew she couldn't stand to hear the phone ring. If she didn't want to answer and was at home, she would have taken the phone off the hook. Walt tried to think of where else she might have gone, but nothing came to mind. Her cell phone was not working after the dunk in the creek; she was probably going to need a new one. Ferg had said something about rice, but Walt had no idea what the younger man was trying to explain; he really didn't care about the phone. All he wanted was to find Vic. _Where was she_?

Henry called, about the time he was ready to charge head long into the hunt for Vic, and told him Vic was at the Pony 'in a mood' and working on her second beer.

"Has she eaten?"

"Not here."

"Fix her something."

"I will. Have you eaten?"

"No."

"Then I will fix you something too."

"Thanks. And Henry don't let…"

"I will not let her leave."

"Right."

He hung up and bolted for the door.  
><strong>**********<strong>

When a couple of minutes had passed and Vic still had not said anything Cady tried again, "You said you screwed up your life?"

"Yep."

Seeing as that did nothing to start Vic talking Cady tried, "Wanna tell me why you left work early?"

"'Cause I'd just done the stupidest thing I've ever done here and screwed up my life in the process."

Maybe they were getting somewhere. Cady listened and then waited again but Vic said nothing more. Cady watched her take a long swallow and thought Vic just might get drunk after all. Deciding to try one last time Cady lowered her voice and said in a carefully measured tone, "Vic I know we don't know each other all that well but I want you to know that, well that I don't' think what you did today was all _that_ bad."

Vic's head snapped in Cady's direction and she pinned a deadly stare on the redhead, "How do you know?"

Cady avoided flinching but she did lean back from Vic slightly, the stare was more than a little intimidating, "No Vic, I don't _know_. I mean I don't know what you did. I just meant that it couldn't be as bad as you think. It just couldn't be."

"Oh it could be. 'Cause it _was_." Vic turned her attention back to the beer bottle, starting on the new label to slow her consumption of its contents.

"Have you talked to my dad about it? Maybe he could help."

Vic said flatly, "He knows."

Cady couldn't help but think that statement had a much deeper meaning than the unaffected two word answer Vic had offered. For the life of her she could not come anywhere near figuring it out. The best she could come up with was the problem had something to do with her dad and that was all. She figured she needed to try a totally different tact.

Facing forward, the same as Vic, she spoke softly, "My mother died, not my dad, and I have to tell you sometimes I'm really glad he just had her cremated; because I think if we had buried her in a hole somewhere he would've tried to crawl in there too." She swallowed back the emotion of the memory of how badly her dad felt at the loss of her mom and how she didn't know at the time that her mother had been murdered. Taking a deep breath to steady herself and refocus on the topic at hand she continued, "As it was, he was barely existing at all. He was getting worse week by week. But you showed up and kind of kicked his butt into gear, and that really was just what he needed Vic. Somebody to push him forward when he didn't feel like it, and make him do things he didn't think he was up to doing, and call him on his bullshit…" She looked at Vic and stopped at the expression reflected back at her.

Vic stared at her for a moment and then said, "Don't give me too much credit, Cady. I did a lot of damage today."

They sat in silence and stared at each other, each attempting unsuccessfully, to read the other's thoughts. After a couple of minutes Vic figured she couldn't do any more damage, than she had already, if she went ahead and told Cady what she'd done. She gave Cady a brief summary of chasing the suspect, landing in Clear Creek, and lipping off to Branch, before confessing the worst part of the day. …  
><strong>**********<strong>

… Vic walked into Walt's office as requested. She had a scratch on the side of her head, in her hairline, just behind her temple; she'd noticed it as she was getting ready for her shower. It wasn't much of an injury, just a deep scratch; she had been able to clean it up without any blood running into her hair during her shower.

Walt seemed to have fixated on the small evidence of her misadventure in the creek. She was not hurt. She hadn't hit her head on a rock or anything; she had gotten the scratch from a bush when she was wrestling the suspect up out of the creek; plain a simple. Walt was upset she had not called for backup before charging off after the suspect. He and Branch had been coming back from the autopsy and could have helped her. He was upset, worried, protective, and overly concerned with the deep scratch he insisted on calling a cut. His closeness, the heat from his body, the tingle on her skin from his fingertips grazing the skin near the scratch, and the sweetness of his breath were mounting too great a challenge against her usual resolve.

She knew his habit of keeping successive breath mints in his mouth during an autopsy to abate the smell and even that morbid bit of knowledge was not enough to distract her thoughts. The sweetness mingled with the general scent of him and waved over her with each pulse of heat that radiated off of him. Her body was so tightly wound and the sensations of him were too much. She tilted her head into his touch, almost imperceptibly; he stroked his fingers a little more firmly along the side of her face; down the sensitive area between her ear and the back of her jaw. Walt started to straighten and shift his body back from hers. How many times had they done this dance, gotten close, only to step back and put the walls up again? Walt's fingertips lightly grazed her face along the underside of her jaw as his fingers drifted from her cheek After the day Vic had had something in her was determined to get some sort of positive reassurance at that point in the day. She reached out and grabbed his shirt front with both hands; pulling him to her as she moved toward him.

Walt looked at her with hesitance in his eyes but he did not resist her movements or being pulled toward her. He couldn't move, not toward her or away, the best he could manage was to let her place him where she wanted him.

Vic backed him up against his desk, as she rolled her fists toward her and held him as close as she could without letting go to change her hold; fearing that would result in a loss of courage.

His mind registered what was happening but he could not decide what to do; what he wanted or what he should. Vic's mouth sought his and staked an undeniable claim. Walt instinctively opened his mouth to her concentrations.

Vic focused her attentions on exploring and savoring every aspect of kissing him. She drew him in, surrounded him, enveloped him in passion, and flooded his mind with emotion and thought. Her concentration solely on extracting something good and positive from her 'day from hell', the only way she could think of; kissing Walt until the aggravation eased.

He could feel the frenetic energy she held in check, it was encapsulated deep inside her and she was not letting it loose in the solitary kiss, but he knew it was there; fueling them both. Walt didn't know who broke the kiss, but suspected it was Vic because he still could not bring himself to consciously act. He found his hands resting on the edge of his desk on either side of his hips. Staring at Vic he realized he was unable to fully bring her into focus.

She backed away from him and said, "I'm taking the rest of the day off I will be in in the morning if you want to fire me."  
>Vic strode from his office, closing the door behind her; she stopped at her desk to grab her gear and her keys, and then beat a hasty retreat out of the building. The next thing she knew she was heading to The Red Pony.<p> 


	3. Facing Up to the Worst Move of the Day

**Facing Up to the Worst Move of the Day**

**************  
>Cady gaped at her for several long moments; Vic had no idea what else to say, so she just stared back and waited for Cady to comment. She made no apologies to Cady for any part of what she had told her. It happened, she did it, she owned up to it, but she'd be damned if she would apologize to anyone for kissing Walt; even him. Whatever the younger woman had to say, when she got past the shock of what she heard, Vic was sure she would more than deserve it. Cady closed her mouth and rested her chin in her hand as she continued to stare at Vic in disbelief.<p>

After another long moment or two the younger woman looked away from Vic and finally spoke, "Dad?" Vic started to reply in the affirmative when she heard Cady add, "Hi."

"Hiya Punk."

Vic heard his steps drawing closer and wondered how he had gotten that far without her noticing. She knew she could not avoid him, no matter how much she wanted to, so she raised her head just as he stopped next to her seat. She knew her face would tell him everything but she forced herself to meet his eyes anyway.

At the shocked look Cady had tried to mask and the guilty look on Vic's face Walt asked, "You tell her?" with a quick dart of his eyes in Cady's direction for clarification.

Vic swallowed and nodded; she'd caused enough trouble for one day and figured she would do well to keep her mouth shut.

He glanced briefly at his daughter and then back to Vic, "Good." Walt wrapped his arms around Vic and pulled her to him. One hand settled just past the midpoint of her lower back, his palm flattened and warmed her skin through the thin sweater. His other hand gently clasped her shoulder encouraging but not forcing her to close the distance between them.

Before her mind could get her body to react, his lips were pushing softly against hers. Reflexively she began to return the kiss, her mind still in a state of shock.

Walt took her reaction as an encouraging sign and coaxed her lips apart. His tongue flowed into her mouth like a warm satin ribbon; soft and tender, but also firm and with purpose. Vic wound her arms around him; one at his waist and the other across his shoulders, pulling him closer; as if that was even possible. He let his fingers find the nape of her neck and gently massaged fingers and thumb at the base of her neck in the minutest of motions. As intense as the kiss was, it was contained within the closed intimacy of their firm embrace; its true intensity shielded from the eyes of others. Vic felt as though he were consuming her and she wanted nothing more but more of the same. When they broke the kiss, Walt released his hold on her and stepped back slightly, remaining well within her personal space, but not touching her. Vic in turn, slid her arms from him, and eased herself back on to the bar stool. _When had she gotten off the stool_? The question resonated in her brain, not really seeking an answer, merely bringing to her awareness the fact she had not noticed the move in the first place.

"Henry we'll pick up Vic's unit later."

"I am okay to drive I've only had a beer and a half."

Walt picked up her beer bottle and downed the remaining half in one long swallow and the handed Vic the bottle instead of setting it back on the bar, "Now I'm only one beer behind."

She stared at him for a moment, unmoving, trying to process the kiss and the fact that he knew he was drinking her beer. Everyone close to them knew he had just finished her beer. Her mind was bouncing from thought to thought; he not only matched her earlier kiss, he had taken it up a notch, and then he drank her beer. Arizona was a long way and a long time from the moment and yet she couldn't keep her mind from pinging off the associated memories. Walt matched her stare and gently angled the beer bottle into her hand. He wanted her to know he was making a point with what he had just done. Vic opened her hand and grasped the bottle.

As her fingers closed around the bottle, Walt made sure she understood his point with a whisper, "Easier to seek forgiveness, right?"

Henry and Cady exchanged a look over the cryptic comment that only Walt and Vic seemed to fully understand. Vic nodded and set the bottle on the bar without taking her eyes from Walt's.

Walt glanced at Henry and raised his eyebrows slightly in question.

"Dinner will be out in another few minutes." Henry answered the unspoken query.

Walt nodded his thanks and returned his focus to Vic, "We're going to have something to eat and then we are going somewhere to talk and I don't want you to have your unit available so you can run off before we've finished that talk."

"What if I don't want…"

He cut her off, "You started this and _we're_ going to get it settled _tonight_."

Henry made a face at Cady indicating she should change the subject between the two. She took a deep breath and said, "Just one question, dad."

He kept his eyes on Vic, "What?"

"Are you going to fire Vic?" Henry titled his head to her as if to ask 'that is the best you could do?' and Cady returned with an 'I don't know' look of her own.

"Nope." He didn't take his eyes off Vic when he listened to and answered Cady.

Walt was still looking at her as Henry walked away and returned a few moments later with their meals on a large serving tray; four monster cheeseburgers and seasoned fries. He set the tray on the bar and lifted two of the plates from it, walking around the bar, and setting them on the nearest table. Walt put his hand on the back of Vic's stool and motioned to the table with the other. They made their way to the table as Henry came back with a beer for Walt.

Vic looked at Walt with almost a defiant expression, "If were eating and you're driving I'm having another beer."

Walt gave him a look and Henry went behind the bar and brought back another beer for Vic.

"We will leave you two to eat." Henry said as he placed a hand on Cady's elbow and led her away from the couple, he easily picked up their meals on their way to the far end of the bar.

Vic was uncertain how she felt about the whole situation at this point and simply concentrated on eating her cheeseburger and seasoned fries. She cut the burger in half, remembering the exchange between Cady and Henry earlier; she figured she'd be doing well to finish half the burger and maybe half or even only a third of her fries.

They ate in silence for a while. Vic was surprised there was no tension in their quietness. When they were about half way through their meal Walt asked, "You okay?"

"Me?! Yeah, I'm fine."

Walt nodded.

"How about you. You okay?"

"Yep."

Her turn to nod.

Walt waited a beat or two and popped a couple of fries in his mouth. When he swallowed, he chased them down with some beer and then asked, "We okay?"

Vic stared at him and answered honestly, "I don't know. Are we?"

"I don't know." He waited, thinking she might say something else. When she didn't he asked, "Why wouldn't we be?"

"Oh I don't know maybe because I totally misread the signals and kissed you; _in_ your office." Her anger at herself was evident in the heavy sarcasm that laced her words.

"Signals? I didn't know I was giving off signals."

"Like I said, I misread them."

"I didn't say that. I said I wasn't aware I was signaling."

"And that's different, how?"

"Because I know what I was thinking and feeling so I have a good idea what signals I must have been sending."

He stopped before she thought he should have, thinking or not, she needed to know what else was on his mind, "And?"

"And knowing that, I'd say you read the signals correctly."

A rush of air flooded from her lungs and Vic realized she had been holding her breath. She looked at him and inhaled though a tentative smile, "You sure?"

He angled his head toward her then over slightly to one side, he glanced away for just a moment in thought, and then looked back at her with amusement in his eyes, "Vic, I, I kissed you back." The look on his face and in his eyes reinforced the meaning behind his words; she hadn't misread the signals.

All of a sudden Vic was uncharacteristically embarrassed; she gave him a bashful smile and then looked away. She simply could not maintain eye contact with him at the moment.

Walt could tell she was embarrassed but had no idea why. For the first time ever with Vic, he felt compelled to fill the silence. "I don't know if you were giving off signals; intentional or otherwise. I know I wasn't looking for any and probably overlooked them if you were."

She gave him a 'gee thanks' look but looked away quickly and did not interrupt.

"What I mean is, they got past me but when you kissed me, well that, that was kind of an in my face, couldn't go unnoticed, very clear signal."

Vic gave short grunt, "Yeah. No subtly there."


	4. Reading Signals

**Author's note: Being that I am being subjected to manual labor outdoors today - you are all the benefitting recipients as I must post this early or it won't go up until after dinner tonight. You're Welcome! ;) LOL I gotta go get dirty now. **

**Reading Signals**

She hadn't looked at him with that last remark but any responding was a good sign; it meant she was listening. "Vic, I want you to think about something." He paused but she gave no reaction, "Okay?"

When she nodded her head he said slowly and gently, hoping she would absorb every word and the deeper total meaning, "I was surprised by your kiss, not upset, just surprised. Caught off guard," He nodded to himself, "yeah caught off guard. But I've thought about you, us really, for so long all I had to do was figure out how I wanted to handle the kiss."

He watched her head raise the tiniest bit and could see her peeking at him from under the shroud like eyebrows she kept low.

Walt took advantage of the opportunity and angled his head to the side to make eye contact with her, "Vic I knew how I felt about you before; didn't know how to handle it but I knew my feelings. When you kissed me I knew your feelings and what you had decided to do about it."

She brought her head up fully, he had her undivided attention.

"All that was left was figuring out what to do next. When I called your house and couldn't reach you, I, I..." Her eyes were boring into him and he was suddenly nervous in his confession. Walt glanced away for just a second or two, took a deep breath and reassembled his resolve. Deliberately seeking her eyes, he plowed ahead, the words nearly tumbled over each other in his rush to say it all, "Vic when I couldn't reach you, find you, I thought you might have left permanently. I had no idea just how much that thought terrified me until Henry called and told me you were here. The relief that hit me nearly knocked me down. I had to think about breathing and keeping my heart beating. The thought of losing you was overwhelming, I was physically hurting and didn't realize until I heard you were safe and close by."

Walt stretched a hand across the table and Vic eased her hand up so he could reach it.

"There was no decision left to make. I simply had to be with you. Find you and stay with you." He squeezed her hand and then risked asking, "Are you okay with that? Or does that creep you out?"

Vic smiled at him, "I'm very okay with that."

He gave her a small smile in return, "Can we go talk about this somewhere else?"

"Where do you have in mind?"

"Somewhere private. You pick."

Vic asked in a slightly flirtatious tone, "Ooo, is it 'you're place or mine'?" as she gave him a wicked smile and a suggestive look.

Walt gave nothing away as he said evenly, "If you want. Or we can go to the office or take a drive."

Vic adopted his neutral manner, "Could we start with a drive?"

"Sure."

Before Walt and Vic left Cady said, "Vic, remember what I said."

"Yeah." Vic answered.

Cady shook her head she hadn't been asking she was telling her, "No Vic, remember it, keep it with you. It's the truth." She lightly placed a hand on Vic arm briefly for emphasis, smiled at her and then turned and kissed her dad's cheek, "Good night, Dad. Call me sometime tomorrow, okay?"

" 'Kay. Night Punk." He said absently, wondering what she had said to Vic earlier that seemed so important to Cady to remind her of it at that moment.

"Daaaddd?"

"Got it, tomorrow, call you" He made eye contact with her, "I promise."

"Okay. Good." She hugged his neck and gave them both a general " 'night."

With a quick good night to Henry, Walt and Vic headed out to his Bronco. They climbed in and he started the truck, neither spoke for a while. After driving back toward town, Walt turned north onto Main street and headed north to business route 90. A few miles later he took a turn off and made a right onto a little used, open dirt road, Walt slowed the bronco to around 25-30 mph.

Vic looked at him she felt the decrease in speed, "Something wrong?"

He glanced at her, "No, just wanted to focus on our talk."

She nodded in understanding and then asked, "Isn't Lake de Smet up 87 a little further?" She asked as she motioned back behind them.

Walt pulled to the side of the road and put the bronco in park as he turned to face her, "It is. I thought you wanted to go for a drive."

"Yeah, I just couldn't think of anywhere and I figured we'd be better off not going to 'your place or mine'." She gave him a look daring him to disagree.

"Yep. You wanna go to the lake?"

"Well, you wouldn't have to worry about focusing on driving and..."

He slipped the bronco into drive and flipped a U-turn back up the dirt road, "And what?"

Vic smiled at him, "And we could actually _start_ talking."

"Right."

Vic couldn't help but chuckle as he kept his attention on the road ahead. She wondered if he was nervous to talk about things or if he was just uncomfortable with her in general. The question could wait with the rest until they found a place to stop and talk.

Walt hit the business route again and followed it over to highway 87 and continued north. He turned off on Monument Road and then took Lake Desmet Road, following the turns and curves in the road until he found a turn off that wound take them up and around to an area that looked back down on the lake. At the end of the empty turn off Walt pulled the bronco around so the back faced the lake. He put the bronco in park, shut it off, pulled the keys, and got out. He walked around the front of the truck and Vic halted her movements when she realized he was coming around to open her door. She had unfastened her seat belt, when she noticed him she let the strap slide back to its shoulder base. Vic smiled at the sweet simple act of Walt opening her door for her.

When he opened the door and held out his hand to her she took a firm hold and stepped down and then pulled him towards her to kiss him gently, "Thank you."

Walt smiled a bashful smile at her and then leaned into kiss her in kind, "You're welcome."

He held her hand and walked her to the back of the bronco. After he let go of her hand, Walt opened the back of the truck, leaned in and pulled a couple of Indian blankets to the tail gate and then rolled each up and placed them of either side of the back. Vic looked at the make shift cushions facing opposite each other and smiled to herself; he was serious about talking.

They settled on opposite sides of the bronco leaning against their respective cushions, knees cocked, feet staggered between each other. Vic took a deep breath, looked at Walt's serious expression, and then burst out laughing. She laughed so long and so hard that Walt started to laugh too. The situation was funny, to a degree, and he could see that as well as she did. Vic pulled her feet under her butt, leaned up on her knees, and snatched the makeshift cushion from behind her.

She stared at Walt and ordered, "Scoot."

He moved forward along the inner side of the bronco, giving Vic more room between him and the tailgate.

With a quick twist of her body Vic dropped over to sit next to him, flipping the blanket up to act as a head rest. Walt watched her, helped steady the blanket behind his head, and grinned at her when he lifted his arm and she ducked her head under it before letting it fall across her shoulders. Vic draped an arm across Walt's waist, and he brought a hand up and held her forearm, stroking it gently with his thumb.

"So you're not gonna fire me?"

"Nope. And you're not quitting, right?"

"Right."

Walt sighed contentedly, "Well there's two questions down."

Vic snorted and pushed at his waist, "Yeah and several dozen to go."

He brought his hand to her chin and tilted it up as he leaned over to kiss her deeply. When he ended the kiss he just looked at her for a long moment, watching her stare back at him and then he smiled slowly; his face lighting with a full smile.

Vic smiled back and squeezed his waist in sort of a one arm hug.

She started to drop her head to his chest but he lifted her chin to him again and spoke very softly, "We'll get to all of them Vic, I promise."

They sat there, wrapped in each other, in the back of the bronco, and talked about the most imminent issues of their being together. Some things they were able to answer or clarify and others they agreed could wait or be revisited. By two am it was getting rather cool and Vic was having a great deal of difficulty staying awake. Walt shifted his position and moved over Vic to get out.

She woke immediately, "What?"

"I better get you home. You're dead on your feet."

Vic crawled to the opening and reached out to him. Walt extended his arms and she wrapped hers around his neck, "Don't ever mention me and dead in the same sentence when I'm in the back of this truck."

Walt laughed and hugged her to him in a firm embrace, "Okay."

"I mean it!" Her sleepy insistence made him laugh.

"Okay." He said a little stronger. Then he kissed the top of her head and added, "I promise I won't."

Vic mumbled, "Won't what?" Her confused tone told him she had drifted off to sleep again but was trying to keep up with the conversation.

Walt bent slightly and scooped her up into his arms. He carried her to the passenger side, pulled the door open, carefully set her in the seat, fastened her seatbelt, and then quietly closed the door. With a quick stop at the back he pulled out one of the blankets and closed everything up before returning to the driver's seat. Walt tucked the blanket around Vic before starting the truck. He marveled at how she was able to curl into the seat to get more comfortable as she slept.

When they reached the highway Vic's sleep laden voice broke the silence, "Take me home?"

"I am Vic. You'll be home in a few minutes."

"Stay."

Walt thought his misheard the single word, "What?"

"Stay. Want to sleep… you…rest…nigh... ."

"You want to sleep with me the rest of the night."

He said it as a statement but Vic replied anyway, "Mmhuh."

Walt thought of her upstairs bedroom and how tired he was, "My cabin okay?"

"Mmhuh, take me home."

He thought the first Mmm had been a yes, but the last answer had him confused, "You wanna gota you're house." He stated for clarification.

However her one word answer, emphasis on both syllables, "Ca-bin." told him he was right the first time.

So, he affirmed her request with, "Mmhuh."


End file.
